The Tattooist of Auschwitz

I don't think that I have watched anything that moved me so much. The horrors of the camp were so well portrayed. At times it was overwhelming but the excellent way in which the series was produced as well as the quality of the acting made me keep watching. I could not stop. The story was ultimately one of love and hope in the absolute darkest of times. Everyone should watch it to see the depths of human nature but also the goodness that can survive in spite of that. It is productions like this one that need to be seen by everyone to prevent this ever happening again. Well done to everyone involved.

The initial low rating for this, 6.0, is quite perplexing. High quality drama with a real feeling of the absolute bleakness, randomness and inhumanity that existed in these camps. Yet showing human spirit and humanity amongst people treated as inhuman by their captors. Really well acted with every character having depth. I think enjoying it is probably the wrong word but it is quality tv Not quite a perfect 10, I did appreciate the value of moving beween ww2 and the present day but it was done a bit too frequently for me and disrupted the drama a bit. And old Lali had an accent which young Lali didnt..did he develop it in Australia?

This is a fine series recounting the horrors of the nazi death camp, auschwitz. The story is told by Lali Sokolov, played in old age by Harvey Keitel who is recounting his story to budding Australian writer Heather Morris played by Melanie Lynskey.

It tells us how Lali became the Auschwitz tatooist which means he tatoo's the prison number on the arm of all new arrivals. In doing this he meets Gita, Anna Prochniak, and they immediately bond so he then seeks her out in the femail quarters where their relationship develops.

As the tatooist has relative freedom in the camp, with even his own room, an SS officer, Stefan Baretski played by Jonas Nay is appointed to supervise him. This, for me, was one of the most fascinating aspects of the story. A strange relationship develops between captive and captor. While Baretski demonstrates his evil side with violence and killing, including beating Lali occasionally, he is clearly not a happy soldier and uses Lali as an emotional crutch. To show a slightly more humane side to his character he often enables private meetings for Lali with Gita.

While auschwitz is shown as an evil place with frequent views of the gas chambers and incinerators, I still think that life for the average prisoner was much worse than portrayed here.

However this is a disturbing and also moving watch which I highly recommend.

In an era when 'Nazi' and 'Fascist' is frequently used to tarnish people for simply having a different opinion, often by people who should know better, this serves as a reminder of what Nazism and Fascism really is.

My main reason for this post is to correct all the ill-informed posters who have critisised Melanies portrayal of Heather Morris in this series. Author Heather Morris is a New Zealander, AS IS Melanie Lynskey!!!! Melanie used her native NZ accent, and it was accurate to a tee. She was never meant to be a British woman as so many seem to think. Lali resided in Melbourne, Australia and was interviewed by a New Zealand woman with a New Zealand accent. Okay, having explained all that, my Jewish wife and I were very disturbed by series despite having been totally familiar with the history of the appalling conditions and treatment in the camps. I did think that it was impossible to obtain actors and extras who could ever look as emaciated as the actual victims, but the message came across as strongly as intended. I do agree with others that young Lali did look and sound as if he had just graduated from Oxford University and would have benefited with an attempt at a Polish accent as all other parts were spoken with the various European accents. All in all, a valiant attempt at a forever difficult subject.

I created an account just to write this review. This is incredibly done. I can't believe that it only got a 6.0/10. I watched the entire series in one sitting and usually I physically cannot do that. What a story and I am so happy that I found this series.

The way that the cast depicted the story, is both haunting and beautiful. There was not a single thing that I saw that I said "no way, that's not real". This story is incredibly eye opening, I cannot recommend this series enough. Watch this at your own risk, there is a lot of violence, sexual content, etc.

This is not for the faint at heart, it gets very real and heavy.